The hype alternates but never changes, it's just people's memories are so terrible they don't remember where they've heard it all before. "This one's classic Madonna.". "This one's Madonna back to basics on the dancefloor!" "This one's just FUN, and isn't that what we need from Madonna right now?"

Repeat. Repeat again.

I don't know how releasing a video, doing the Super Bowl, and paying off Clear Channel to play "Gimmee" once an hour every day can be said to be Madonna "doing nothing" to promote it.

What Madonna needed at this stage in her career is a "Wind Beneath My Wings," but despite the hype for being such a smart bizness lady, she's too dumb to know.

Honestly, you should have learned as recently as a couple of weeks ago, songanddance, that using Madonna's chart positions as signifiers of anything is a fool's game. But then again, if you were able to shrug off the collapse of "Gimme..." because it was something you termed "a buzz single," (a new one on me), perhaps this one is merely a "buzz reanimator" and not a proper single, either?

I do, however, finally understand why you go there. No longer able to actually discern what makes this stuff she releases songs, or music, the only way to find something positive to say is to think of it as product, virtual objects that can only be evaluated as numbers of units moved. The listener's more like a franchisee buying into something in some way, like a frock store fronted by the image of Olivia Newton John or something.

Regardless, the quality is dire. "Girls they just wanna have some fun!" "Some of your true colors they come shining through!"

"They care to blame and Iroquois be good news if they were." Come find us at https://twitter.com/NamoInExile

Oh lord come off your high horse for a second Namo. As hard as it is for you to believe, some people actually like the song. I hated the first single and like this one. I'm not convincing myself of anything. It's fun to dance to, or clean the apartment to (which is more my reality these days). And to be honest, I've never expected much more than that from a Madonna song. For Namo

I agree it won't get much polay outside of clubs and club sharts in the US (though since Gaga dance music has become much more current on American radio so who knows). At this point in her career she's very much an album artist--enough people will buy the CD to make it a success. Madonna already did the adult contemporary ballad thing in the mid 90s (partly to get against the Erotica backlash, partly apparently to audition for Evita) and it worked, but at this stage she's not really going to bring in new fans, and as much of a mess as I found Hard Candy she does know what her audience more or less wants.

*shrug* I won't pretend I think it's brilliance. I don't listen to dance/pop for the same reasons I listen to, say, Sondheim or a lot of other music, just the same as I like to see different kinds of films, they all don't have to be some work of art. Aside from performers I have some sentiment towards, like Madonna or Kylie, I tend to follow the dance or pop charts more on who the songwriter and/or producer is, and as I said I think this is a solid piece of Benny Benassi's dance/pop. It's not groundbreaking, even by his standards it's fairly redundent, but I find it well done and find the song fun. And that's enough for me,.

(that said I will admit that sometimes when Madonna acts like some of her songs arte super deep, I get a little embarassed--but that aspect of her oddly is also part of her crazy appeal for me),. I appreciate that you hate it though Namo--I probably feel the same about some songs you like--that's fine.

Namo please dont tell me how i feel and what i like. I love going clubbing and would love to be out dancing to that song, if her intention was to make people want to get up and dance then job done.

As for the 'collapse' of GMAYL, It still went top 10 for her so cant be seen as that much of a let down, though i agree it was not the best song.

Madonna is going to do what she wants to do, she clearly wants to make a record that people can dance too, great, i for one am up for that, some people may not be. Does the woman have to produce something each time that people say 'wow she has really reinvented her stye' (ala Ray of Light)? No, does she hell, after 30 years i think she has earned the right to produce music that she just wants to have fun with, people will either follow her or they wont. However Namo if you do not like a song it does not mean the general population of.....the world have to agree with you, i know that pains you luv lol.

Also i heard 3 tracks from the album today thanks to a journalist friend, 1 was good, 2 of them blew me away (Gang Bang is incredible, crazy, psychotic)

Well said. I think it's ridiculous to expect and suggest Madonna of all people now just do adult contemporary ballads. That's only been a minor part of her success and appeal back in the day, and I find the argument about her being too old to do dance music kinda weak.

The problem is that her current dance music, and recent dance music is even weaker than the age discussion. Imagine if Madonna really would do what sanddm2 said: just do what she wants. She certainly can afford to do whatever the hell she wants and maybe come up with something, you know, good (doesn't have to be groundbreaking but it could be good!). Instead we get these over-thought leaden stinkers.

For as talentless and dumb as I think Britney Spears is in actuality (and I believe she contributes about 15% of the work to the creations constructed and released under her name), the results actually DO sound good when blasted over club speakers and the kids FLOCK to the floor when her music comes on.

I wasn't telling you what you like or how you feel, sanddm2. I said I understood why you bring the conversation to how many units Madonna has shifted because that's really all that's left to say. We're certainly not going to talk about the lyrics or melody.

And again, I would ask you how much these charts and number 10s (really! did you ever think it would come to cheering a peak of number 10????) mean when they plummet like a sky diver with a failed parachute the very next week? Especially after all the promotion and payola that went into making "Gimme" a hit?? I do like how you've changed your tune on that song so quickly. Now it's "not the best." Also, I recall your enthusiasm over "Hard Candy" at the time. I realize now you say you don't like the album. So, with hindsight, I guarantee you will come to realize how terrible this new stuff is.

I followed a link that took me to a one minute sample of "I'm Addicted" on Perez Hilton's site today. Hor. Ri. Ble. Really, a disaster. Somebody should make the poor woman a "Madonna: It Doesn't Get Better" video post-haste.

As for the clubs, well, I spent seven months from June through December doing a job in an assortment of gay dance clubs and none, I mean NONE, of them played any Madonna at all. The baby gays and the many gals of all shapes and sizes who love them could not be any less interested. Hell, even Gaga only got played once a night during this time period.

I spent last week in a warm weather resort town popular with eldergays (from your age all the way up to mine and well beyond, sanddm2) whom one would think to be the last bastion of the Madonna demographic. I spent time in four places that had dance music soundtracks going and I heard Madonna exactly once. It was "Where's the Party?" in a retro DJ set. I will give the old has-been credit, it sounded GREAT. It was a toss off song that accomplished all the things the die-hards try to convince themselves her recent lugubrious output has: effervescence, joie de vivre, a melody, a hook. Those days appear over. She seems incapable of getting people to build something half as exciting on the dancefloor as a number phoned in by Britney Spears.

"They care to blame and Iroquois be good news if they were." Come find us at https://twitter.com/NamoInExile

I kinda skimmed that but I promise that if I feel like it at a later point I'll read it in depth. I do enjoy Where's the Party though--it's hardly even a very good pop song really, but it has an energy to it.

I'm feeling vindicated by the reports that she's trashing Guy Ritchie on a couple of the tracks on the new album. How he squelched her. Made her "swallow my light." (Probably the only thing she swallowed in that marriage.)

This of course flies right in the face of the legend of the strong business woman who won't be told what to do, and completely validates those of us who felt she lost the plot once she married him, ditched the gays, became a veddy proper childrens authoress, and her music started to suck ass. Of course, when we said so then, she let us know in her unmusical way she'd "heard it all before, heard it all before, heard it all before." (That was for you, Jerb.)

"They care to blame and Iroquois be good news if they were." Come find us at https://twitter.com/NamoInExile

Vindicated in what way? Did MNadonna tell you she wouldn't discuss the marriage on the album? This is classic Madonna--at least from Like a Prayer on (and I say that with full disclosure that that aspect of her lyrics, which some fans seem to take to heart to a hysterical degree, always is a bit much to me and not really something I search for in her music--and I do think there's some truth to your argument of her music sometimes being over thought). But really, that's simply nothing new--take a random lyric from Prayer, Ray of Light, or many other albums.

No, I feel that after years of going on in interviews about how independent she is and how she does things her way, turns out, she DID "swallow her light" for a man. It parallels exactly the time frame she stopped doing interesting and creative things.

"They care to blame and Iroquois be good news if they were." Come find us at https://twitter.com/NamoInExile

OK first of Namo i like Gimmie All Your Luvin, i just said it was not the best. Also i enjoy many songs on Hard Candy, but again its not the best.

As for I'm Addicted, that seems to be a song that critics are liking, i adored that clip, very 80s New Romantics with a touch of 90s electronica and a modern spin. The latest clip of Love Spent is also great.

Also NOBODY knows she is talking about Guy on that song, the press have decided she is, on another song i have heard she also talks about how she messed up a good thing where she talks about their life in the countryside so if anything i would say that song is about Guy. Also it's not like it's the first time she has talked about her failed marriage, she did the same on a track on Like a Prayer that was about Sean Penn, talking about their violent marriage. It's cray people want her to stop been so 'light' with her lyrics and subject matter yet now you are saying that her talking about her life and laying it out on a record is wrong?

I personally think GGW is one hell of a floor stomper, im out clubbing every week and would dance my ass off to that track. I guess some of her older fans (though im actually 33) may not like the techno vibe of the album, i for one love it.

As for the top ten thing, getting the single to number 10 when you are a 53 year old woman is not bad at all with an average song ( i personally think she should not have released that track as its very different sounding to anything else on the album).

Madonna is getting way past the point where she is a singles artist anymore, she is an album artist like Bon Jovi, The Rolling Stones etc, the album release (which broke pre order records) will be what is important to her/label.

So far about 4 main reviews have come out for the album, all positive, a couple of duff songs and nothing groundbreaking (except a couple of songs) but a positive dance album with a dark streak.

Thank you. You lead me to the point I think I have been aiming for. Madonna is neither a singles nor an album artist anymore. She is a legacy artist. They use that term now for people like The Stones and Springsteen, selling out stadia on the strength of their catalogues. I used to be bored with the very notion of legacy artists, trotting out the hits every summer, with most of them never bothering to record anything new because their audiences only wanted to hear the hits.

That's the place where Madonna is in her career. (Remember Liz Rosenberg assuring fans the Reinvention Tour was going to have "all the hits you remember?", that was the moment it officially happened.)

However, The Stones and Bruce actually DO record new things even though they don't have to anymore. They hardly sell, but I buy them, and I have to say I am always delighted that not only do they bother, but they put some heart into it. Especially in the case of the Stones, almost nobody buys the new stuff. And you've got Bruce with his ever deepening Burl Ives crazy old man voice and the whomping stomp of the E Street Band behind him on the album that just came out yesterday. It's kind of nutty and surprising in ways we have no reason to expect from legacy acts.

THAT'S why Madonna is such a crushing disappointment. She stopped really trying. Plays it safe and uninteresting. She can't even phone it in to producers who could turn it into shiny silk dancefloor purses like Britney's handlers do.

And finally, the point I made about my recent frequent dancefloor exposure was to say that if you really want to shake your butt to MDNA stuff, this is probably not the country the music will be getting any such exposure in. Not even the gay clubs.

"They care to blame and Iroquois be good news if they were." Come find us at https://twitter.com/NamoInExile

Well apparently her new tracks are getting a lot of club exposure in the states.

I would not call her a legacy artist just yet (but she will get to that point) but i think she still has more left to offer and im sure she will blow everyone away in a couple of years when she does something like a country album lol. For now however this is where she is at, and after hearing some of the album songs i would say hold your judgement.

I would call her a legacy artist in the fact that it really doesn't matter what she records. If she releases an album, it will hit the charts which is why I find her sales to be completely irrelevant to the quality of her work. She proved this with American Life (which I find completely unlistenable). Her singles and albums will debut high and go gold or platinum because she's a legacy artist.

"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian

Funny. I know so many people who enjoyed 'American Life' after the fact and after all the chaos died down a year or so later. There are songs like 'Love profusion' 'Intervention' and 'X-Static Process' or 'Easy Ride', which never got the chance to ever be heard due to the fact that Clear Channel put a ban on Madonna because she was so 'Anti-Bush' at the time. It was such an FU album at the time and I thought the album to be so forward and in retrospect, is actually a great listen. Very 'different' for it's time. (And great songwriting-the last time her lyrics were honest, heartfelt and revealing).

Same with Erotica. It was never given a chance due to how the Sex book and media frenzy made everything she did so sex drenched. But you listen to 'Rain' 'Deeper and Deeper' 'Bad Girl' or the jazzier stuff like 'Where Life Begins' and 'Secret Garden'.. and it's really such a hot album. 'Erotica' and 'Fever' isn't so shabby either.

I tend to find Madonna albums more pleasurable to listen to after the chaos and media frenzy dies off.

I'm actually enjoying the Pharrell stuff on 'Hard Candy'. 'Miles Away', 'Heartbeat' 'She's Not Me' 'Beat Goes On' 'Dance Tonight' and 'Give It To Me' are quite the fun songs on that album and worth the time to shake your butt to.

I didn't care for GMAYL- but I do love the new single 'Girl Gone Wild'. 'I'm Addicted' snippet sounds amazing- and that's just through tinny computer speakers. 'Lovespent' is more of a modern day 'Cherish' it seems like. But one cannot judge anything by listening to a one minute clip.

I will not judge until the album comes out and I can blast it on my stereo or with my studio headphones on. I'm sure that it will have all of 'Ray of Light's'-William Orbits' sonic bubbles and speedy beats that will make me dance without thinking so much. If that's what she's into now- cool for her.

I mean seriously- she's done everything she's needed to do. And after 30 years, she's still in a very good place.

I do think the term Legacy artist is fitting ofr Madonna. Part of it is unavoidable--when you're that "old" and been around that long, it's just how the market classifies you. And while I liked parts of Hard Candy, I thought it was the first time she fully played it safe (using producers who were already past their prime in the US for example), though I think that's still not fair. Even the Reinvention Tour was somewhat sneaky on her part--they sold it, after the lackluster American life reception, as a Greatest Hits tour, but it barely was compared to any of her past tours, it still was nearly half American Life material.

WHen I've gone to her tour, I've seen middle aged people who don't know her stuff disappointed that she doesn't just do her hits (the way the way the Rolling Stones largely do).

And actually I would classify her still as an album artist--she sells better than the Stones album wise. But, in the US particularly, it is true that, excepting usually doing decently with the lead single, her singles are DOA. I think that would largely happen regardless of what she released...

Taboo, I agree wholeheartedly about Erotica, perhaps my favorite overall album by her (unfortunately I have the original pressing with that god awful Did You Do It rap song by some random group included, which was cut from later pressings). I think some of that as Madonna's own fault--regardless about what one thinks about Sex, it did rub people the wrong way (and she consciously focused on softening her image afterwards). But the album itself was sold--by her--initially as being borderline pornographic. I remember one review commented that it seemed odd after all the hype to find on Erotica a song called "Why's it so Hard" not being about sex but being about compassion and understanding...

I also think American Life stands up better in retrosepct, although I don't like the lyrics as much as you. Some are strong, but heard back to back to back they clobber your head with that "bad teenaged diary poetry" confessional style Madonna can use that I have a hard time taking too much of. That siad, Mirwais' production is great and a lot of the songs--particularly ones you listed, are also great. For me she screwed herself as soon as she agreed to not use the controversial (and very good) original title song video, and for one of the first times in her career, apologetically released that awful video instead (which seemed more like a Madonna drag queen lip synching in front of a blue screen).

I agree that the Pharell stuff on Hard Candy is MUCH better than the Timabaland stuff overall (I do like the retro disco funk of Dance 2Night--and while an unopopular Pharell tune with fans, I like Incredible a lot too), which is ironic, somewhat, since it was the Timbaland collaboration that got all the press. But American radio was so over saturated with everyone working with Timbaland at the time, it seemed a regretful choice for Madonna who usually works with producers just as they're on their way up, not on the way down.

I am another one who loves the Erotica album, musically it's brilliant and lyrically it moves with ease and excitement. Bad Girl is perfection, Thief of Hearts, Deeper and Deeper, Where Life Begins, Rain, In This Life, Why's it so Hard are incredible.